As we’ve covered, Reform have been having a nightmare trying to sign up suitable candidates for the local elections. The problem is that anyone who’s suited to Reform is probably not well matched to broader public opinion, which is why we keep getting candidates like this:
Quite the quote. https://t.co/nDZelXynf1 pic.twitter.com/PHWHcGo9aE
— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) April 1, 2026
Reform’s Welsh-Russian axis
John Clark is one of Reform’s candidates for the Welsh Senedd. To be absolutely fair to him, he wasn’t thanking Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine; he was thanking him for engaging in “dialogue”:
There are still a couple of problems, of course. The first is that Putin wasn’t engaging in peace talks; he was chatting with right-wing US political commentator Tucker Carlson. When Putin has engaged in actual peace talks, he hasn’t engaged very meaningfully – hence the war raging on.
The other problem for Clark is that you can’t be thanking politicians for engaging in discussions in the UK. Remember when the media crucified Jeremy Corbyn for five years because he held talks with Hamas and referred to them as “our friends” in an effort to encourage dialogue? The right certainly played that up, so this is the bed they’ve made for themselves.
It doesn’t help that Reform have previous issues with their Welsh politicians being overly favourable to Russia. This was most notable with Nathan Gill (former leader of Reform Wales), who was sentenced to ten and a half years for taking bribes to talk positively about Russia in the European parliament.
Reform Exposed unearthed some more tweets too, including this one:
Look, we didn’t like Rishi Sunak either, but the above phrasing suggests that Clark just wanted to praise Putin. The same can be said of this:
You can’t form your opinions by taking what your opponents say and just thinking the opposite.
Sides
To be completely fair to Clark, he has talked about the war in terms like the below, which is certainly less head-banging than some of the people on either side of the war:
If Ukraine escalates, then Russia will escalate too, and the cycle of violence will continue. Far too many people have died already. It’s time to look for a diplomatic solution.
— John Clark 🏴 🇬🇧 (@TJohnClark) March 23, 2024
Digging deeper, he tweeted the following about Trump in 2024, but doesn’t seem to have said anything about Trump’s catastrophic war against Iran:
Trump is the only President in recent history that did not start any wars. Give peace a chance, Trump 2024.
— John Clark 🏴 🇬🇧 (@TJohnClark) January 16, 2024
Have the neo-cons been reduced to random name-calling? Are you upset that Trump didn’t start any wars?
— John Clark 🏴 🇬🇧 (@TJohnClark) January 16, 2024
Personally, if we’d been taking in by Trump’s ‘peace candidate’ shtick, we would have corrected the record when he started invading other countries, but that’s just us.
Clark also tweeted the following, suggesting his anti-war feelings are really pretty selective, because Trump conducted all sorts of belligerent acts in his first term:
You’re not fit to polish Trump’s boots @campbellclaret. How is that Iraq war going? Remember David Kelly, warmonger?
— John Clark 🏴 🇬🇧 (@TJohnClark) August 25, 2023
Differences
It’s obviously the case that Western nations’ relationship with Russia became unduly strained as a result of the US maintaining reflexive Cold War politics. At the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an absolute travesty. As Joe Glenton wrote for the Canary in 2022:
Less than 48 hours into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and so much remains unclear. Will Russia occupy? Will NATO respond militarily? What are the risks of nuclear escalation? But one thing should be very apparent. Looking to either NATO or Russia in search of a good guy in all of this is deeply naïve.
On the one side we have the Russian regime. Viciously illiberal and oligarchic, it’s a model of authoritarian capitalism. Determined to reclaim its lost imperial status, it’s as willing to bomb Ukrainian cities as it is to batter its own courageous anti-war protestors off the streets of Moscow.
In NATO, we have an organisation which today functions as a beard for US imperial ambitions. It comes with a bleak history of supporting fascists in Europe and of the kind of brinkmanship which has brought us to where we are today. It’s also played a direct part in the disastrous wars in – to name just two recent examples – Libya and Afghanistan.
Reform politicians keep giving the impression that they like Russia for the same reason they like Donald Trump; because the imperial powers are the bigger kid, pushing the smaller kid around.
And let’s be real; picking on the little guy is Reform’s policy platform in a nutshell.
Featured image via World Economic Forum (Flickr)
